‘King Charles is a secret Muslim!’: The bizarre things I heard at the Reform party conference

The first thing I noticed as I entered the Reform party’s annual conference was just how diverse the attendees were.

The long-held stereotype among many left-wing commentators has been that Nigel Farage’s supporters are mainly old and male.

But as I walked across the main hall I was struck by how packed it was with groups of young men, many wearing flamboyant suits and bow-ties. There were also plenty of women.

But there was one major area in which they were all nearly uniform: most of the attendees were white.

I noticed one man hand his Indian passport to a security officer doing ID checks as we walked in. Being non-white he was in the minority, as was I. 

This was the first day of the two-day conference at the National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham, and the atmosphere was already electric. It looked and felt like a festival.

People were chugging pints of beer and congregating excitedly at fringe events. Groups of friends clustered around benches eating hot dogs and burgers.

It was nearly impossible to find any food without meat in it – which might have been intentional, a forlorn vegetarian suggested to me in passing.

Many of the men in the conference’s main hall wore light blue suits and ties, light blue being the party’s colour. Others were in Reform FC T-shirts or draped in large Union Jack or St George’s flags. 

A lot of the women wore light blue dresses.

In recent months, Reform has been shaping the political weather in Britain and those in attendance knew it. 

The right-wing anti-immigrant party has topped every opinion poll for months and is the leading contender to enter government at the next general election.

Reform’s leader, Nigel Farage, has become a household name in Britain, and he marched purposefully across the conference floor flanked by several bodyguards.

Nearby, Jeremy Kyle of television fame could be seen interviewing groups of excited party members.

I walked past Matthew Goodwin, an academic who used to study the rise of national populism, wearing a Reform cap. He was surrounded by a crowd of adoring fans. 

Everything at the event was distinctly camp in style.

For some reason, there were large buses in the hall. I counted six in total. There was also a prominently-displayed bulldozer belonging to JCB, a British company whose products are known for being used to destroy the homes of Muslims in India and Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.

‘They’re not integrating’

It quickly became apparent that some Reform members didn’t want to speak to me. I couldn’t think why.

I greeted one man who glared at me suspiciously. I told him I was a journalist and his suspicion intensified.

He asked who I worked for. When I said “Middle East Eye” I was sent packing.

Elsewhere in the hall I found better luck. 

I met a Reform councillor called David, a bearded veteran of the armed forces.

“I’ve seen many men who paid the ultimate price for this country,” he told me.

He explained that even though he left service, through Reform he was still fighting for the flag. His suit jacket and trousers were covered in mini Union Jacks. He even had a Union Jack bow-tie.

David introduced me to his wife of six years, Jennifer. He was a widower, she a widow. They explained how campaigning for Farage’s party injected new meaning into their lives. 

Another councillor, named Allen, joined the conversation. The three told me they were profoundly worried for Britain’s future.

David began to tear up remembering the late Queen Elizabeth and spoke movingly of her dedication to the country.

Her successor, however, he despises, so much so that he refused to say he was fighting for “king and country.”

“We suspect King Charles is a Muslim,” Jennifer said.

“And a practising one too,” she added in horror. 

David says that “with the amount of Muslims coming in, they’re not integrating.”

“Years ago, they used to integrate,” Jennifer noted.

“But now they’ve got their own mullahs,” David said. “Radicals. They want to introduce sharia law.”

I hadn’t yet told them my surname – Mulla. 

“Our fish and chip man is an Indian gentleman,” David said. “He integrated. He’s paid his dues. Now he’s being called racist by his own countrymen who are coming from India.”

At this point Allen pointed to a nearby television screen broadcasting GB News footage of migrants arriving in Britain.

“Look!” Jennifer gasped. “Even more are coming!”

‘British Muslim patriot’

I asked whether Palestinian refugees should be welcomed to Britain. The answer was an empathic “no.”

“If the Arab countries don’t take them, why should we?” David asked. “They know they’re terrorists.”

What about the women and children?

“Ask them who they voted for,” David responded. “Hamas.”

“Well, not the children,” Jennifer interjected. 

I thanked them for speaking to me. “Thank you for listening,” David said as he warmly shook my hand.

“God bless you,” Jennifer said. “Jesus, keep this young man safe,” she added.

Friday’s conference schedule was shaken up by Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s decision to announce a cabinet reshuffle, drawing the attention of the national press away from Birmingham. 

Farage’s address was moved forward from late afternoon to 1pm. He emerged through a smokescreen onto the main stage as dramatic music blared across the giant conference arena and the crowd went wild.

They chanted his name and clapped in unison. 

The whole event felt like a TV show.

The crowd booed and cheered at the appropriate moments, with Farage the master orator-entertainer.

His speech highlighted Reform’s new policy proposal to deport a staggering 600,000 illegal immigrants within five years. 

He pledged for the first time to ban the Muslim Brotherhood, a cause long promoted by the United Arab Emirates. 

Farage also announced that Zia Yusuf, a self-proclaimed “British Muslim patriot” and key figure in the party, was its new head of policy.

In June Yusuf resigned as Reform’s chairman in a shock move following a public row with Reform MP Sarah Pochin, after she called for a ban on women wearing the burqa. 

But just days later, he rejoined the party as head of its department of government efficiency, saying his resignation had been a mistake. 

Yusuf on Israel

Yusuf is a spectacular and quick-witted speaker with a commanding presence. At a fringe event hosted by The Spectator magazine, he drew round after round of applause from Reform members.

I asked Yusuf about the party’s foreign policy. He has never accused Israel, which is committing genocide in Gaza, of war crimes.

So I put it to him that Israel killed two Middle East Eye journalists, my colleagues, earlier this month.

Mohamed Salama and Ahmed Abu Aziz were assassinated while covering an Israeli attack on the Nasser hospital in southern Gaza. At least three other journalists were among the 20 Palestinians murdered in the attacks.

I asked Yusuf whether he accepts that Israel has killed too many innocent people in Gaza. Some Reform members heckled and decided to shout.

I also asked whether a Reform government would seek to stop Israel’s war on Gaza.

Yusuf didn’t condemn Israel or say that it had killed too many innocents. Instead, he said that Farage as prime minister would “do everything he could to stop that awful war”.

He then digressed into an extended reflection on the state of the British military and the need for it to be strong, before returning to the topic of Gaza.

“So Nigel wants an end to that war. But look, you’ve got to be realistic about what that also means. You need Hamas to give up the hostages.

Yusuf continued: “I do think it’s very difficult to arrange a sustainable long-term peace with an organisation whose founding documents literally say that Israel has no right to exist, is illegitimate and must be eradicated.”

The Israeli military has destroyed more than 70 percent of the buildings in Gaza City and killed more than 64,000 people in the Gaza Strip.

Afterwards I was accosted by some Reform members. One elderly man was furious with me and declared that Israel can’t be blamed for killing journalists, because Britain killed civilians during the Second World War. 

Not all Reform members took the same approach. Another elderly man told me that the conference “is more domestic focused”.

“But it was a good question,” he added with a smile.

One woman, also a Reform member and wearing a light blue dress, approached me and apologised. She was almost tearful as she assured me that not all Reform members are like the hecklers. She added that she hopes the Palestinians “find peace”. 

Jeremy Corbyn vs Tommy Robinson

Reform, clearly, is a broad church.

Many supporters insist that by addressing concerns around immigration, the party is a bulwark against the rise of racist and far-right forces. 

In the fringe event, Tory minister Michael Gove, now the editor of The Spectator, asked Yusuf to speak about Muslims in Britain and his Muslim identity.

Yusuf discussed how “this country welcomed my parents” and “nobody is more upset about the state of illegal migration than legal migrants.” 

He said that many Muslims were appalled by “some of the nasty imams who post things on TikTok.”

Steered into addressing the topic by Gove, however, Yusuf said he backed a ban on the burqa.

He also suggested the government was stoking resentment against Muslims by giving them preferential treatment.

Absurdly, Yusuf falsely claimed that Labour wants to introduce an “Islamophobia law making it illegal to criticise one particular religion”.

There is no truth to this – the government has floated adopting a non-legally-binding definition of “anti-Muslim hatred” which explicitly says it will not prevent criticism of Islam.

Many people might wonder whether it is in fact this sort of false claim which stokes resentment against Muslims.

Gove, who is quite the provocateur, asked Yusuf who is worse: former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn or Tommy Robinson.

Corbyn is an elected MP; Robinson a far-right thug and convicted criminal who has built a violent street movement focused on intimidating British Muslims.

“Jeremy Corbyn is absolutely the worst,” Yusuf said.

He praised the convicted criminal: “Tommy Robinson has said things about the rape gangs and was making those arguments for years, and was disparaged and has been proven correct, and deserves some credit for that”.

There is a huge round of applause from the crowd. 

At another point in the same event, a Reform councillor took the microphone to criticise Yusuf and complain that his local branch doesn’t receive communication from the head office.

This was a running theme throughout the conference: on multiple occasions, Reform councillors asked Yusuf publicly about various issues that they had apparently been unable to resolve in private.

One councillor asked him in a different fringe event to explain what exactly Reform’s policies are. Another asked whether the Fabian Society (a Labour-affiliated organisation) are like the Freemasons. Yusuf dodged this question. 

At nightfall, a party around the main stage began. People were dancing to pounding music and spilling glasses of beer. A black man in a Union Jack-themed hat danced alone with his eyes closed.

Farage briefly appeared on stage and announced the Jacksons would be performing.

A man gasped in awe. “Michael?”

Instead it was Marlon and Jackie Jackson from the legendary pop group. Michael Jackson famously died in 2009.

Ethnic minorities within Reform

On Saturday, I decided to go in search of ethnic minority Reform members. There were a few of them and they were easy to spot.

Prabdeep Singh, a Sikh man in a light blue turban, was happy to talk and told me he is a key party organiser in west London’s Hounslow, where he unsuccessfully stood as a parliamentary candidate last year. Hounslow has a large Indian migrant population.

He says he has always felt welcome and at home in the party. 

His friend Pulvinder, a local organiser for Reform in Birmingham, concurs. Pulvinder said that “if you’re English you won’t get a job in the Metropolitan Police now.” I have met English people in the Met.

Reform isn’t racist, Pulvinder told me. “I’m a Sikh,” he said. “I’m practising my religion.” He then glanced at the glass of beer he’s holding and slightly caveated that statement. 

Pulvinder’s friend, a white Scottish woman, approached us. She introduced herself as Senga, an organiser for Reform in Scotland. Nigel Farage inspired her to enter politics, she said. “Normal people in this country are standing up.”
 
Senga was quick to inform me that “I have no problem with anyone’s colour.” She and Pulvinder hugged each other to prove her point. The Scottish National Party, she noted, are the real racists: “They hate the English.”

Senga also said that she’s worried for the future. “My niece couldn’t get into her course at university because they wanted foreigners. And she’s had straight As.”

She told me that people are afraid to speak freely in Starmer’s Britain.

“We might as well be in China,” Pulvinder added. “Or North Korea.”

I asked what they thought of Tommy Robinson. Senga said “there’s good and bad” in him. Pulvinder said he believes he “just puts his points across in the wrong way.”

‘Britain’s favourite political prisoner’

They and the other members I met believe Reform is bringing about the dawn of a new Britain. 

Lucy Connolly, who was imprisoned for calling for hotels housing asylum seekers to be burnt down during last summer’s riots, was welcomed onto the main stage as “Britain’s favourite political prisoner”, to a standing ovation by thousands of people. 

She said she wants to work with Reform. The crowd went wild. Farage later praised her. This wouldn’t have been conceivable a few years ago.

Likewise former Tory minister Jacob Rees-Mogg appeared on a panel with David Starkey, a historian who was effectively banished from the mainstream media a few years ago after launching a racist invective against black people.

Reform is bringing him back into the limelight.

There were rumours that Rees-Mogg would announce his defection from the Tory party to Reform, but that’s clearly not happening. He insisted to the crowd that he is a Tory and firmly believes he must remain a Tory.

“I don’t think he’s defecting,” a young man said.

“Why’s he here then?” an elderly woman next to him grumbled.

Rees-Mogg proposed an electoral pact between Reform and the Tories. The crowd went silent. An elderly man in a blue jacket next to me shook his head vigorously. The Tory grandee had badly misread the room. 

More in tune with the times was James Orr, a well-known Cambridge academic who was widely accused of racism after saying “Import the Arab World, become the Arab World” about pro-Palestine protests in London.

In one panel event I attended, Orr started rambling about ancient Greece and “demos”, “cosmos” and “kratos”. 

I started to nod off, but was jolted awake when he switched into a more prophetic register. He declared with all the fervour of a true believer that a Reform government is simply inevitable.

“A new right is emerging,” Orr proclaimed. “The old right is dying.”

The conference ended with key party figures, Farage and Yusuf among them, lined up on the main stage for the national anthem. They were led in song by Andrea Jenkyns, the mayor of Lincolnshire.

In the final gaffe of the conference, Jenkyns sang “God save our gracious queen” instead of “king”.

I suspect many Reform members were quite pleased with her mistake.